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Page 10 of 30
MONSTROUS MANICHEAN MADNESS
The
Church was fully free of faulty thinking in this area until about the
fourth and fifth century after Christ, when a funny but phoney
philosophy of “dualism” infiltrated the Church from a man called “the
father of Christian philosophy and theology”. He introduced a warped
way of thinking into the Church that was not corrected by the
theologians or philosophers that were to follow. Here is the man, the
doctrine and the correction to his approach.
St. Augustine, 354-430 A.D., was a Greek Manicheist philosopher prior to his coming
into
the Church. Here, we quote from the World Book Dictionary: “Manchiean
(man’ e ke’ en) -n, a member of a Gnostic sect, arising in Persia in
the 200’s AD., compounded of Christian, Buddhistic, Zoroastrian, and
other beliefs, and maintaining atheological dualism in which the body
and matter were identified with darkness and evil, and the soul,
striving to liberate Itself, was identified with light and goodness. -
In other words, while God’s Hebrews believed matter and the body to be
bad or good, depending upon the use to which it was put, - the
Manichiests believed, and taught, that the body was evil, and that
everything that the body did, or was, or said was only always
exceedingly sinful. Sound familiar? Nearly every church and catechism
and liturgy we know of, has something of this within it. Some have even
given the illustration: that inside every person there is a white dog
nature and a black dog nature and that the one that wins is the one you
say “sic’em” to (or feed) the most. That’s what we mean by “dualism”.
Instead, God’s Hebrews properly said that matter, a pen, a human body was not bad in
itself, but that its inherent goodness or evil was determined by what one did with that
matter
or pen or human body. This is why, in Romans, Paul says that ‘the
instruments of our body are slaves of righteousness if we yield them to
do righteous things, and that they are instruments of unrighteousness
if we yield them to do unrighteous things.”
But the Manicheans said that the members of our body are bad, because they were made
of substance, of material, of matter. So In Augustine’s writings, he says that it is a sin
to
watch a dog chase a rabbit. Why? Because the body gets excited and
involved, and says, “Let’s see now, is the dog gonna catch the rabbit,
or is the rabbit gonna catch the dog?” Augustine said, “I have learned
to take my food as medicine.” In other words,
he disciplined himself
to the place where a big juicy piece of beefsteak tasted like cod liver
oil, Just so his body would not get all involved, excited, and sinful.
My well rounded mother told me one time that every act of sex was
sinful. (She had four grown children!)
She quoted David’s verse, “I
was born and conceived in sin.” She didn’t know the Jewish tradition
about David’s personal family situation. I said, “Mother, what a
terrible thing to say about us kids.”
The real question is NOT “Can I keep from sinning?” but ‘Is God great enough to keep
me
from sinning?!.” Is He? If someone asks me. ‘Do you ever get a wrong
spirit or attitude toward your wife or children or anyone?” or if they
say, ‘Don’t you ever sin?” I respond, “I don’t recommend It!” or ‘We’re
not In favor of it.” If they argue, ‘Do you actually think a person can
get through the day without sinning?!” I respond, We’d advise it.”
If
you admit that you do not sin, they will call you a liar. But if you
say you do sin, they will say. “See there! It’s not possible to keep
from sinning.”
Mark Twain allegedly wrote in his memoirs.
“Went to church today. Preacher preached on sin. Only problem was, I
couldn’t rahtly tell whether he was for It. ‘r again’ It!” You know?
Sometimes a body can’t tell by looking at some Christians’ lives and
doctrines whether or not they’re in favor of sin or against it,
either!!!
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